Battle Royale Online
by Ariehon
Summary: Kirito and his friends are once again trapped in a video game with 5000 when they accepted to beta test the game known as Battle Royale Online. Unlike SAO, this game's price is the death of a player results in that player being locked up in a virtual space until someone clears. This story's point of view is from Akai, a former SAO player with a past akin to his name.
1. Prologue

11- 2027

"Ugh!" I thought as I dodged the rushing boar. "What's going on?" I thought. "I thought SAO was cleared already by the Black Swordsman?" I looked down and saw leather armor along with a longsword in my hand. I slashed at it with the sword, grazing it as it went past me.

As I braced for its next attack, I swiped the air next to me with my fingers and ,with a chill down my spine, saw the menu come down. It was definitely a player menu but it was from a different style than SAO which meant...

"I'm in another virtual game?!" I thought. I looked over at the top of the menu where it read "Battle Royale Online".

"I see. Looks like I am in another game after all. In that case..." I thought.

As the boar rushed at me, I quickly sidestepped, sheathed the longsword by my waist and breathing in, I slashed with the sword in a half arc, slicing the boar and causing it to shatter. As the pieces disintegrated and the familiar menu with the gold and exp came out, I tried to remember what happened.

Fragments flashed by my mind. I remembered waking up from the hospital ward, remember searching for something (or was it someone), then suddenly being here? I tried to remember more but couldn't.

As I walked back to town, I saw people screaming clenching their hair while others were bending over and crying.

"What the hell is happening?" I thought. I was about to step into an inn when a voice behind me said "I wouldn't do that if I were you Kage. Everyone here is in a drunken frenzy I'd say"

I quickly turned around and swung my blade, pointing it at the head of a girl with a hoodie of a short stature with yellow hair and red markings on the sides of her face. She quickly put her hands up and as she shook her head said "My my. You're definitely as aggressive as always Kage."

I sighed and, sheathing my sword, said "Oh it's you Argo. You know I do that if someone comes up from behind. And for the last time, my name is Akai"

She apparently ignored what I said as she replied "So judging by your expression, I'm guessing you don't know what's going on?"

"No, I don't" I said. "Why's everyone in this state?"

"Well I don't know why you don't but we're once in a game that we can't log out of. Just yesterday, about 5000 of us began to beta test this game because of a letter and a package with the game inside it. Of course since there are only 5000 of us, there were some that decided not to play it. However, when we came into this world, we saw that we couldn't log out."

"I guess the events of three years ago repeated itself again?" I said

"It's five Kage. But yes. A GM by the name of Janus came down to explain that we were not doing a death game but the ones who died would quickly be transported into a virtual space in which they would be held until someone clears the game. This game is running using the flux light system so 1 second in real life is 1000 here." she continued to explain.

"I see so we don't have to worry about anything bad in real life happening here so it's not as bad as SAO" I thought. "But..."

"What's everyone crying about then?" I asked

"Directly to the point as always eh?"she said "Well I heard that these bosses are harder than the ones in SAO and for a test, they're giving us an automatic boss fight in one month."

"One month?!" I thought. "I heard the frontlines beat the first boss within that time period but if everyone has to go through that same thing then..."

"Yep." she said "It's exactly as you think Kage. Many will likely die."

"I see. Thanks for the info Argo. Do you want payment for this like always?" I asked

"Nope." She said while turning around. "Since everyone knows this, I'll give it for free today. Oh yeah by the way Ka-"

"AUUGH!" as a scream went off.

"Oh dear." Argo said. "It's already started huh?"

"What is?" I asked

"I forgot to mention this but there are four things that this game is different from SAO. First is that magic is in this game as well as magic-involved sword skills. Second is that we don't die but we get locked up. Third is this mandatory boss fight we're going to have in the next month. And last but definitely not least is what you just heard just now. Player killing may be somewhat frequent.


	2. Chapter 1 PK

"PK-ing is more common here huh" I thought as I walked down the road to the monster hunting fields.

I checked my reflection at a nearby pond. It was the same as my real self. With my black hair and brown eyes, I had the beginner's leather armor and sword. My height and build were the same too, average in height and fit. I thought again about PK-ing and what I should do.

Flashes of images popped up in my mind as I thought up about this concept of killing. Images of blades being swung at me and my blade swinging back swirled in my mind. "Should I really go back to that life." I thought "Killing others in that world of swords?"

"But this isn't SAO anymore." I thought. "This isn't actually killing."

"But their lives are still forfeit and dependent on others Akai-kun." said a soft voice inside my head.

"Yeah yeah I get it." I thought. "I'll try my utmost not to kill."

As I saw a boars and slimes spawning to greet my appearance, I said to myself "I'll get to a reasonable level first by hunting these and survive this boss fight in a month."

As I dodged their incoming rushes and slashed to counter to kill them, I saw my exp gauge slowly but gradually rising up to 100% to level me up.

A while later when I saw the sun start to set, I saw the menu popping up to congratulate me on reaching level 2. "Whew, that took a long time to level up." I thought." I guess this is good enough. Should I start heading back to town?"

While I was heading back, I saw a two people on the outside of town having what looked like was a sword fight.

"I guess this is one of the PK fights that Argo was talking about." I thought.

I saw one of them cut the other's arm off and as the other's sword swung off and as the other's sword spun off to the side and stuck itself onto the ground.

At that instant, I started sprinting towards those two to attempt to stop the killing.

But it was too late. When I got to the point when I could see the killer, he had severed the other guy's head and he shattered, signaling his game over.

He looked like a man in his mid 40s, well built with brown spiky hair, was dressed in metallic armor, and had a one handed axe in his left hand. I couldn't see his face properly because of the sunset but I could tell he was smiling about the act he had done.

When he turned towards me, he said "Oh, a second one today. I'm pretty lucky."

I sighed and said "Why did you kill him? Was it that fun to you?"

"Listen kid," he said. "Have you heard of a game called Sword Art Online? Probably have since it was news during that time. I was in a killin guild called Laughing Coffin. My time there was absolutely amazin. I did stuff like that without having to be punished for two years. Best part is, all I told em when I came back was I was crazy so I avoided punishment too. Ain't that the greatest? Now enough talk kid. Draw your sword."

He lifted his axe up and I put my hand on the hilt of my sword but still kept it inside of the sheath.

"Heeh?" said the man. "You think you're some samurai doing a stance like that? If you're not coming to me, I'm going to you!"

He swung his axe at me and I easily dodged it and said "too slow" and slashed at his armor. Strangely, his HP bar only dropped a tiny amount.

"Ha! Ya think something like that'll hurt me? Let me tell you something kid. In this game, PK-ing can give you more EXP and will also allow you to steal their equipment. I'm level 7 right now. I'm guessing if you've been playing the game like that, you're only level 1 or 2 at best. Games' are all about leveling. Now why don't you hurry up and die!"

I dodged and flipped backwards away from him. "I see" I said. "That's why PK is so common here huh. Then I'm definitely at a disadvantage here."

"Yeah, I told ya. Now will you hurry up and di-" he started to say.

"Is that what you'd think I'd say?" I asked. I tightened my grip on the sword hanging low next to me and said "Hey, do you know what the genre of this game is called?"

"Course I do." he said. "It's Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online gaming"

"Yeah," I said getting into a sword drawing stance. "The reality part of this game is true. The details like color and shape are all as close as you can get to real life. It's amazing."

"So? What are you saying?" he said.

"It means," I said and pushing off from the ground to cover the distance between us , I said in front of him ,"I can bring my strength from real life into this."

"Ahh!" he screamed and swung his axe with an orange glow at me.

"It's a swing at my head coming from the right to the left." I thought and ducked to avoid it.

I immediately started slashing at him with the fastest speed I had, making red marks on his armor, his legs, his arms, as well as his face. I didn't care about the axe swinging at me. Judging from his posture and shoulder angle, I could judge where it was aiming for and how it would do it.

"How long has it been since I've done this" I thought. "Swinging my sword at another person with no care in the world. Their terrified expressions as they were getting closer and closer to death. And the strange excitement I got from gambling my own life in this fight."

When I sheathed my sword back, he was full of red lines everywhere and his HP was close to zero in the red zone yet mine was almost completely untouched.

"I-impossible." he said. "You beat me without using any sword skills and being a lower level? I should easily have won this!"

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe between a fight between two people who both rely on this illusionary strength. But remember this, actual skill can overcome that illusion."

When I saw him dropping his axe and sink to his knees, I turned around and started walking back to town. When I had walked about 5 steps away from him, I heard a voice from behind saying "What's the point of being so strong in real life when you're naive like that!"

I sighed and muttering "Sorry Suna. I tried." sliced his hand holding the axe. As the axe spun and spun in the setting sun before sinking into the ground, I pointed my sword at his chin.

As he started blabbering things I couldn't understand, I asked him "Hey, you were in Laughing Coffin right? Do you know who the executive members were?"

He stopped blabbering and said "Y-yea. The leader PoH, J-johnny Black, and R-red-eyed Xaxa. Those were the three most active."

"That's incorrect." I said. "There was a fourth member more active than they were by the name of Akai."

"Y-you're talking about the Red Shadow? T-that's impossible. He s-should be dead fer being a traitor. They sent 6 men after him."

"Was there anything saying that he was dead?" I asked coldly.

"N-no." he said and after being silent for a bit, started laughing. "So you're the Red Shadow eh?! That's funny! I remember people saying that you had a sword drawing style but I couldn't believe them! You were supposed to responsible fer over half the Laughing Coffin's killing!"

He then stayed silent for a bit longer then shouted "YOU DAMN TRAITOR. IF YOU WERE THERE WHEN THE FRONTLINERS ATTACKED, LAUGHING COFFIN COULD HAVE STAYED ALIVE. YOU WOULDA BEATEN ALL O' THEM INCLUDING THE Black Swordsman and The Flash BUT YOU JUST HAD TO MEET THAT DAMN WOMA-"

I cut his head off and said "Quiet. You're hurting my ears."

I turned around and quietly muttered, "Don't worry. Your life belongs to me now. In the meantime, repent in that other world for what you have done."

As I entered the town, I saw Argo nearby who looked up said "Oh Kage, you're back. I have more information about the boss fight in a month. Do you want it?"

Before I answered, I thought "Yeah, I was definitely Akai the Red Shadow. But now, I'm a frontliner. Though I can't ask for forgiveness for the ones I have killed, I can be one of the people to save the ones here and I'll try my best to do so."

"Yeah," I said smiling, "For how much?"


	3. Chapter 2 First boss (before the fight)

It's been one month since the game officially started and the mandatory boss battle each player has to go through is here. As I walked through town, I saw mixed expressions in people, some of fear and some of confidence. As for me, I couldn't help but feel a little bit anxious but excited at the same time. In SAO, I didn't join the frontliners in fighting bosses but spent most of my time killing these people from the missions I was given. Therefore, I didn't really have any experience in fighting bosses.

Something I found interesting in the game was the existence of magic, which was definitely different from SAO, and something called OSS or Original Sword Skills, where I programmed my own sword skills. I had heard from Argo that this was supposed to be difficult but I had managed to get in about 7 different skills which I was definitely going to be using today. Though having these were more reassuring, there were still some anxieties.

"I wonder how the administration's going to handle this." I thought. "Are they going to put a giant boss in the middle of town? But that wouldn't really be having a boss fight for everyone necessarily."

Feeling a little more tense, I looked at the clock in the center of town. 1:50 PM. The announcement was supposed to be made at 2:00 PM about how the boss fight would happen.

"Kirito-kun what do you think about this situation?" said a girl's voice right behind me. I turned around to see a girl with chestnut long hair and wore light brown leather armor with a thin sword at her waist. Next to her was a guy with black hair, matching clothing and a long sword on his back. There were also others next to them, three guys, one very tall with dark skin and carrying an axe, one carrying a katana like mine with a scruffy face, and the last one with neat black hair, a rather handsome face, and carried a longsword at his side. There were also four girls, one with black hair wearing two braids holding a bow, one with light brown hair holding a what looked like a baselard, one that had freckles holding a mace, and the other with short black hair with a longsword.

"Geh!" I thought as I immediately turned back around. "Why is the Black swordsman and the Flash here. Out of all the people I could be standing next to in the town square, it just had to be the best two in the front line."

As I awkwardly stood looking at the clock with them behind me, the clock finally hit two and the sky began to shake. I looked up and saw the sky opening to show a gigantic figure in a hood come out similar to how Kayaba Akihiko showed himself in SAO.

"Hello everyone!." said the giant figure "My name is Janus and I am one of the administrators in this game. As I mentioned one month before this, there is going to be a boss fight for everyone held right now. There are conveniently 4900 people in this game right now so I'll be splitting each group into 70 people and each group will be taking on the same boss. All of you will now each be teleported into the respective spaces to start your fight. Good luck! Further instructions will be provided when you defeat the boss.

"I see." I thought "This way, they're definitely covering everyone. Now I guess the only issue is what group of people I'll end up with."

I heard "Good luck Kirito-san.", "You guys too", and "No one here better die!" as the space around us began to warp and my vision turned white.

When I reopened my eyes, I found myself in a well-lit room. There were statues of knights on the side but the room itself looked like the sanctuary room of a church cathedral.

"This is it huh?" I thought. "Where's the boss?"

I looked around but nothing was there. However, a message then came up in my inbox and, after opening it, I found it saying "Since this is a random group of people, we will give you 30 minutes of preparation. Use it wisely."

Once I finished reading, a voice in front of me shouted "Alright guys here's the plan!" I looked in front to see a tall man with a lance wearing metal plating. I couldn't see his face properly because he had a helmet but judging from his voice, I could tell he was in his mid 30s. He was accompanied by two others who had similar equipment but one had an axe and the other with a mace.

"My name is Rys and me and my buddies are probably the highest levels here since we're PKers."

At this, everyone started murmuring amongst themselves only to be told to be shut up by Rys.

"We're the strongest here and so we'll be making the plans got it?" Rys said "Anyone who's going to complain is going to get killed!"

"Tsch" I thought "They're going to pull this kind of thing in a situation like this?"

"We'll be assuming a basic formation of the fighters in the front with the archers and mages in the back. The three of us will be in the back directing you guys what to do. At 10%, all of you will rush the boss and give us an opening so that one of us will take the last hit. Any questions?" he said.

"Of course there are!" I thought in my head. "You want people to risk their lives so that you fools can get the last hit? How selfish can you guys possibly be?!"

"Wait," said a voice behind me. I turned around and saw the handsome man that was with The Flash and The Black Swordsman.

"Making these people rush at the boss for your selfish desires is unreasonable." he said "Let's make it so that we'll continue the plan you guys made but the last hit belongs to whoever did it."

"Hell no!" said Rys. "What's the point of fighting a boss like this for us if not for that last hit?"

"In that case." said the man. "Let's do a short duel of the first one to hit. Whoever wins can take the role of leader. That ok?"

"Hah!" Rys said. "I'd like to kill you but we don't have the time. Very well show me what you got."

As everyone started clearing space for the two to do a duel, I saw near me two of the girls that I saw in the town with him, a small girl with the baselard and light brown hair and the other with freckles and a mace. They were saying "Good luck Kouichirou-san!" and "You can do it!".

"His name's Kouichirou huh." I thought. "Let's see how good he is."

They both took their respective sides and prepared to fight. As Rys raised his spear and Kouichirou his sword, the countdown went down from 5..4..3..2..1..0 START and both started running towards the other.

"In this case," I thought, "The sword user's at a disadvantage since the spear user has more reach so he has to close the distance fast enough but I doubt it'll work as well as that."

True enough, Rys continued to jab and made no room for Kouichirou to enter into the range for a sword. As Kouichirou dodged and parried, I saw that his movements were getting slower.

"This is pretty bad" I thought and then at that moment, Rys kicked Kouichirou's legs and he fell over.

Grinning in triumph, Rys raised his lance and swung it down for the finish and as the girls were about to say "No..."I smiled and said "I see. This is what he was aiming for huh."

In the next moment, I saw that the spear was right next to Kouichirou and his sword was jabbed a little inside Rys's body. In the moment that Rys had swung his lance down, he rolled over dodging it by a hair's breadth and as the opponent had let his guard down in his moment of triumph, it was easy to do a counter attack.

There was a momentary silence but it was followed up by loud noises of cheering and clapping. Clapping my own hands, I thought "That's pretty good. Although most people wouldn't try to do something as risky as that. Nice fight."

"It's decided like this right Rys-san?" Kouichirou said.

Gritting his teeth, Rys said. "Fine. I'll definitely pay you back for this! I'm definitely going to get the last hit."

"Well" Kouichirou said. "The plan will be like they suggested but I'll be the one to direct you guys and will try to adjust accordingly. There will be no rushing at 10% and whoever gets the last hit gets the item. Let's have a good fight!"

As everyone said "Yeah!", we got into our positions. There were about thirty people in the backline, composed of mages, archers, and healers and another thirty in the front line, including me. Kouichirou had assumed leadership and the other nine were to stay on standby to hunt any minions that would show up.

"This is a good formation." I thought as I saw the timer count down from 15 seconds. "I just hope it'll work out well."

When the timer reached zero, I thought "Here we go." as the fight began.


	4. Chapter 3 First Boss (Fight and after)

When the "Let the Battle Begin" sign showed up, we were all in formation waiting for the boss to appear.

"Look!" said one of the people next to me.

We all watched as a man came out of the shadows.

He dressed like that of a samurai and had a katana at his left side. The boss's name was read as Tokugawa Shogun. Other than that, he looked somewhat disappointing as a boss.

"Wh-what is that supposed to be hahaha?" said Rys, lowering his spear. "This is the boss? Man, I guess the GMs decided to make this one easy since everyone's fighting it. Hey everyone, let's play rock paper scissors to have a party go against it."

At his statement, I saw several people in the back and front line start to lower their weapons. Some even began sighing out of relief.

However, as he was saying that, I saw the samurai start to draw his blade and though it was far away, it was a light green shine.

"He's casting a sword skill?" I thought. "From this distance? That could only mean... Shit!"

"Hey, everyone get down NOW!" I yelled as I ducked down

"Huh? What are you sa-" was the last thing Rys said before his head was severed clean by a crescent-shaped attack.

At this, several people screamed and began to panic, running away from the frontline. To make matters worse, as if they were waiting for this timing, the statues of knights came to life as enemies, all of them reading as "stone knights". Some had lances whiles others had swords. There were around 8 of them and they began to mercilessly attack our backline.

"Damn," I thought. "This is really bad. We're all going to die at this rate."

I ran back to where Kouichirou was fighting off two of the knights. I slashed at one to get its aggro and I positioned myself so I'd be back to back with him.

"Hey! Can you get everyone back together?" I asked

"It's going to be hard with that boss and the knights together." he replied.

"Let me handle the boss." I said. "I'll give you about 4 minutes. Can you get everyone back together by then?"

"Yeah. Probably. What about you? Can you hold off that guy for that long?" he asked

"I'm going to have to." I said as I parried and slashed off the knights' head, exploding both it and its body into fragments of light.

"Ok then. I'm counting on you." said Kouichirou as he warded off his knight and slash his knight's torso to kill it.

"I'm off then." I said and ran towards the boss that was hunting the unorganized front line. I saw in the corner of my eye two more knights on the walls come to life to replace the ones that had fallen and hoped that the group could be back in formation on time.

As the samurai was about to slash a guy that had lost his weapon and was fallen down to the ground, I said "Not while I'm still alive!" and slashed at its back. The samurai lost only a small amount of HP and it turned towards me, ignoring the other guy.

"Ok good. At least he's safe." I thought before the samurai cut behind him and slashed the guy's legs off.

As the guy cried out in pain I thought "Oh son of a bitch" and engaged him.

As I parried and tried to slash at him, I thought "Ok, this isn't working. I can't beat this guy by myself with the amount I'm dealing to him right now. I'll focus everything on defense and wait for everyone to get back into formation again.

I pushed back with my sword to gain some distance. I breathed out and thought "If there were any mistakes in this game in regards to making this world like the real one, I'm going to kill the game developers."

As the samurai slashed, I looked at his wrist and sword angle as well as the slash height and thought "slash to left shoulder" and blocked my left side with my sword using two hands. The samurai quickly drew back his sword and slashed below. I had also drawn back by sword and quickly thinking "Left and right knee", blocked his next slash. The impact was too soft so I quickly moved it to the center of my chest, making the blade face up to block the samurai's inhumane speedy jab at my heart. I continued to block his attacks, looking at its wrist, shoulder, and blade angles as well as the strength and speed of its attacks to fend off any fakes.

After what seemed like a while, I once again pushed back with my sword to gain distance again. Panting I thought, "Fighting bosses are on another level huh. At least I'm holding him back. In another minute or so, Kouichirou should have the group moving again."

As if reading the situation, the samurai suddenly faced ran towards a pink-haired girl with a staff who was already blocking the attack of a knight.

"Damn it!" I said and ran after it.

When the girl fended off the knight and saw the samurai coming at her, she screamed though instead of attacking her, it kicked off her, slamming her against the wall where she slumped down and made itself face to face with me.

"It used her for a fake?!" I thought "How intelligent is this thing?! More importantly, I don't have time to parry..."

Though I managed to read its attack and draw my blade to redirect it, he still slashed from my right shoulder to the middle of my chest, blowing me back to the floor. My sword also was knocked away, landing several feet away from me. My HP bar was instantly at the red zone and without a sword, I definitely couldn't block its next attack.

"Damn," I thought "This is as far as I can go huh?"

"As it began to slash at me, I saw a fireball explode at him and at the next instant, 6 people came over to engage him. I then saw a healing circle around me and looking behind, I saw the girl with the staff chanting a healing spell.

I saw Kouchirou running up to me with the two girls I saw before with him and leaning down, he asked "Hey, looks like you made it."

I stood up and said "You guys took long enough. How's the situation?"

"Thanks to the time you bought, we have about two fighters and a long distance fighter engaging each knight so they don't bother us and two healers for that group." he said

I quickly counted how many people were in the backline, which were about another eight with four healers and including the four of us and six battling the boss right now, about 30 people had died.

"That many huh." I muttered.

"It can't be helped." Kouchirou said. "We were taken completely by surprise after all. It's thanks to you this many are alive right now."

"You're pretty amazing to keep the boss busy for that long." said the girl with freckles left of Kouichirou. "I'm Lizbeth and next to me is Silica. Liz is fine."

"I'm Silica." said the girl to the right of him. "It was really amazing. You remind me of Kirito-san."

"Right?" Liz said. "His recklessness is the same too."

As they both laughed, I turned around to see how the battle was going. Thanks to a group effort, the samurai's HP began to go down quicker than I thought. However, when it was near the red, it suddenly decided to brush off its attackers and started running towards the backline ignoring the magic and arrows it was being hit with.

"Damn," I said "It's doing something irregular again?"

When I was about to run at it, a hand stopped me.

"Let us go with you too. We'll create the opening." said Kouichirou. I turned around to see Silica and Liz nodding their heads as well.

"Alright then." I said. "I'm counting on you guys."

The four of us ran to the front of the samurai. Kouichirou quickly blocked the front while Silica and Liz went to the left and right sides to flank him. The samurai quickly spun around to brush the three off it but Kouchirou had knocked up his sword and I had come right in front of him.

As Silica and Lis said "switch!" I activated my sword skill by starting to draw my sword from my right side from its sheath." Katana 3-hit original sword skill Byakko's Claws " I muttered as I slashed three times down, one at his left shoulder, one at his chest, and one at his right shoulder. Continuing on, I then said "Katana 2-hit OSS Suzaku's Talons" and slashed twice diagonally from his left shoulder to right side and right shoulder to left side of his body. Dodging the samurai's slash to my neck, I said "Katana 1-hit OSS Genbu's Bite and drove the through its chest. I quickly took the sword out and once again dodging its efforts to slash me, I said "Katana 5-hit OSS Seiryu's Breath" and slashed at his neck, left and right shoulder and left and right legs. Groaning, it once again tried to attack, and knocking its sword out the way I shouted "Damn it just die already! Katana 1-hit wind OSS Wind God's Strike!" and as my glowing green sword slashed at his chest from left to right, I saw it still trying to attack me but finally shattered into fragments of light.

As I saw the "Congratulations!" sign come up to show our win, I sighed and fell back to sit down as the rest of the group cheered. I then saw an inbox email pop up and it appears everyone else did too as they all pulled up their main menu to check it. The message read as follows:

Dear Akai,

Congratulations for getting past the very first test to clear Battle Royale Online. We are very pleased to see you being able to continue on to play this game. All of you will move onto the next level. You can exit through the doors at the end of the room. Just like the previous death game Sword Art Online we have made this game composed of one hundred floors. However, when one floor is cleared, everyone will move to the next floor and cannot go back down. We hope this will cause only the strong to move up and the weak to die out. Do not worry about any shops that you may have opened on a previous floor because it will follow as long as you are still alive. As for any house owning, there is a separate floor space called My House that you can access once you buy a house. All the houses are in one floor, both large and small and of course, stores are free to open there as well. We hope to see you clear this game and perhaps save everyone else as well. To move onto the next floor, there are different conditions, not necessarily bosses so look forward to those. Entertain us to the fullest

Game Administrator

Janus

P.S. The bosses are no longer mandatory but the monsters will become stronger as you move up so best of luck

To the email, everyone cheered once again, likely to the news that they don't need to fight bosses anymore.

I also received a notification saying that I had a new item. I opened it to find an item called Masamune. I hit the "equip" button make my sword disappear and a katana with a refined edge. Estimating it, it was about 65 cm long, slightly longer than an average katana and the weight was fairly heavy as well. I tried swinging it around and I was very satisfied with how it felt in my hand.

"You got a new sword huh? I'm pretty jealous" said a voice behind me.

I turned around to see Kouichirou standing there.

"Oh yeah I did. I guess it was from the boss. Thanks for that last opening." I said. Looking around, I asked "Is everyone ok?"

"Yeah. Thanks to you" he said. "Are you going to leave?"

"Yeah. I'm not one to stick around with a big group for so long." I said looking at the rowdy group. "I'm sure they can manage from here."

"I see." said Kouichirou. "In that case, is it ok if I come along with you?"

"That's fine. You're pretty reliable." I said.

When I turned around to leave, another girl's voice said "W-wait a minute please!"

I looked back to see the pink haired girl from before run towards me. She was dressed in a traditional mage's robe and held a wooden staff in her hand. She was about the same height as Liz except a more slender body.

"C-can you take me with you as well?" she said panting. "I-I'll try to be of service"

Slightly taken aback, I said "That's fine and all but what for?"

She turned a little red and turning to the side, she said "F-for saving me before."

"Oh that?" I said "It wasn't really saving but I mean if you're ok with it, that's fine with me. I'm Akai. What's your name?"

"My name's Shiina." she said. "I'm mostly a healer but I can also do battle magic as well."

"I see." I said. "Well, glad to have you Shiina."

She turned brighter at this and said "Thank you!" with a smile.

"So your name is Akai huh?" said Kouichirou. "That's pretty unusual"

"I don't want to hear that from someone named Kouichirou" I replied.

We both laughed at this and walked with Shiina to the door.

"By the way Kouichirou-san," I said opening the door. "What about Liz and Silica? Weren't you with them?"

"I already told them that I'm traveling with you for the time being." Kouichirou said "Don't worry about that. And you can drop the -san if you want."

"Shiina-san, did you have any party members?" I asked.

She shook her head and said "No. I was travelling solo until now."

"That's good then." I said. "By the way, Koichirou-san, why were you with The Flash and the The Black Swordsman?"

"The Flash and The Black Swordsman?" Kouchirou asked confused. He then realized and said "Oh you mean my little sister and her boyfriend?"

"Little sister and boyfriend?" I thought and then froze.

Before the light swallowed the three of us to transport us to the next floor, all I could say was "Ehhhhhh?!"

Current Levels:  
Akai- 11  
Kouichirou- 10  
Shiina- 10

2nd floor

"Oh here they come." Asuna said waving at Silica and Liz

When they got there, Klein said "Looks like everyone's safe huh? That's great to know"

Asuna looked around and asked "Liz and Silica? Where's my brother?"

Silica started to say something but Liz shushed her and made a grim face.

"I'm sorry Asuna" she said

When Asuna said "N-no way...", Liz quickly made a bright face and said "Just kidding. He's travelling with someone else right now. He's fine."

"Ohhh you!" Asuna said angrily chasing Liz who was running away. "I thought he was gone for a second!"

Liz laughed and said "No way. We had one heck of a guy in our group. He ended up saving us."

"That's right" Silica said. "He reminded me of Kirito-san."

"Kirito?" said Sinon. "There's someone that good here?"

"Well, whatever it is, Asuna's brother's safe too right?" Agil said. "I guess we'll start leaving too."

"Yep." Leafa said. "Let's go brother."

"Yeah" Kirito said. "Onward to the next stage!"

Current levels:  
Kirito- 12 Leafa- 10  
Asuna- 11 Klein-10  
Agil-10 Silica-9  
Sinon-10 Liz- 9


End file.
